Would this be an acceptable way to tag tracks with multiple artists?

General Discussion
1

Say we have the song:

Artist1 - Song1 (feat. Artist2)

Would it be frowned upon if I wanted to tag it like this?

ARTIST = Artist1
ARTISTS = Artist; Artist2
TITLE = Song1

Another ex:

Artist1 - Song2 (feat. Artist2 & Artist 3)

ARTIST = Artist1
ARTISTS = Artist; Artist2; Artist3
TITLE = Song2

Artist1 & Artist2 - Song3 (feat. Artist 3)

ARTIST = Artist1; Artist2
ARTISTS = Artist; Artist2; Artist3
TITLE = Song3

effectively using ARTIST for main artists and ARTISTS for all artists? Is ARTISTS a standard tag? Could have sworn I've seen it before.

Keep in mind I am not utilizing multi-value tags with \\, I am using a single tag with a semicolon. So the tags are quite literally "Artist1; Artist2" etc, not multiple of the same tag

I am considering this approach because I am trying to distinguish main artists from featured artists, and was wondering if this is a potential solution.

2

No. It's user-defined. So not a lot of players can show it.
See the help on supported fields:

3

i wrote my own player, so i can easily support any tags. im just wondering

  • is using ARTISTS deviating too far away from the standard?

  • is this a reasonable way to handle differentiating main & featured artists? if not, what would be better?

4

Since you seem to prefer standard tags: It's very common to use ALBUMARTIST for the main artist and ARTIST for the main and the featured artists.

5

this doesnt cover every case. ex:

  • Juice WRLD & The Weeknd - Smile -- on the album Legends Never Die by Juice WRLD.
    ** The Weeknd is credited as a main artist, not a featured artist, even though it is on a solo Juice WRLD album.
  • Lil Yachty & DaBaby - Oprah's Bank Account (feat. Drake) -- on the album Lil Boat 3 by Lil Yachty.
    ** DaBaby is credited as a main artist, not a featured artist, while Drake is credited as a featured artist, taking place on a solo Lil Yachty album.
6

If this is the case then you needn't bother, do whatever you want.
But if you can use whatever tag field you like - then I would use a tag field that shows with its name somehow what the contents would be, e.g. FEATURED_ARTIST or MAIN_ARTIST.
And for compatibility reasons, so that the tracks can also be treated on other players, fill the fields as suggested in